May 31, 2011

Have you ever run into the right person at just the right time? Have you meet a person who has the knowledge to help you solve a problem, or who provides the right information to help you with an issue you are trying to tackle. You may have not been looking for the person, but you just stumbled upon them. That is serendipity.

Attracting What We Were Not Looking For

Serendipity- The simple definition of serendipity is finding what we didn’t know what we were looking for. It is unexpected encounters with people and they knowledge they posses.

But what if, instead of accidentally stumbling into a serendipitous encounter, you could attract or draw these people to you--a form of purposeful serendipity? We would be able to attract whom we need to learn from—and attraction is a powerful force.

I have advocated that technology and other key drivers have created an environment in which individual Learning Communities can be networked with, not only other Learning Communities, but also useful individuals such as specialists, researchers, academics, consultants, etc., physically and virtually. I call this model the Networked Learning Collaborative.

Authors John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison explain why attraction, or purposefully shaping serendipitous encounters is so important in their book The Power of Pull. The reason that the NLC is so powerful is because it seeks to attract the people with the knowledge we need to meet our knowledge or learning needs at that moment.

A NLC attracts those people who know what we need, who have wrestled with our current issues, and who have the tacit knowledge we need to meet the challenges we are currently facing and wrestling with.

The Networked Learning Collaborative attracts the people who posses the tacit knowledge we need.

Attraction- “…techniques focused for drawing people or resources to us that we were not even aware existed but that prove to be relevant and valuable.”

The Super Node

Each member of a NLC becomes a super node. Each person is the portal to the network. The person is an autonomous communication and collaboration node. Each member can potentially leverage not only their network, but also the network of others who are in their network. This principle is known as Metcalfe’s Law. The number of potential connections between nodes grows more quickly than the number of nodes. The total value of the network where each node can reach every other node in the network grows with the square of the number of nodes. In other words, when NLC members connect their networks, it creates more value than the sum of networks independently.

Our networks can help us attract serendipity.

Why Serendipity

“We need serendipitous encounters with people because of the importance of the ideas these people carry with them and the connections they have. People carry tacit knowledge. You can’t learn brain surgery just from a text…you need to stand next to someone who already knows and learn by doing. Tacit knowledge exists only in people’s heads.”

Serendipitous encounters become a rich flow of tacit knowledge.

“…serendipitous encounters with people prove to be more fruitful that an isolated encounter with new objects or data. We not only have the opportunity to access the tacit knowledge other people have gained from their experiences—and to share our own—but can begin to create relationships that may themselves spawn new tacit knowledge as we begin to collaborate on areas of shared interest.”

Think about how many times you have attended a staff development or training session and left thinking, “Okay, but what do I do next.” You need the tacit knowledge of someone who has been there and done that. You need someone to show you how, share his or her experience, and put it in a real life context for you.

Networked Learning Collaboratives help attract people who have knowledge in the challenge, problem, or situation you face. They are fellow travelers down these learning and knowledge avenues. And, as the authors state, fellow travelers amplify us.

“If you are exploring a new territory—an edge—it’s very helpful to learn from the experience of others in similar contexts. Serendipitous encounters thus help amplify our efforts by connecting us with our fellow explorers—exactly the people who can help us in our own explorations.”

One of the benefits of tacit knowledge flows from our fellow travelers is that it cuts down on the time we might waste. We know that every moment is precious. There is not a moment to waste when it comes to meeting the needs of our organizations, churches, and teams. Attracting tacit knowledge through our network creates a high rate of return on our attention.

Return On Attention- ROA

“In a world where attraction and return on attention—defined as the value gained relative to the time and attention invested—are becoming increasingly important, those who master the techniques required to shape serendipity will likely profit far more than those who simply wait for it to surface.”

Shaping serendipity involves the blending of three elements: environments, practices, and preparedness. We will look at those in a coming post.

Ongoing Connections- Building Relationships

“Serendipity becomes much more than a one-time encounter or an end in itself: It becomes the crucial means of access to rich flows of tacit knowledge both now and in the future.”

The other benefit to attracting people through our Networked Learning Collaborative is that we create more than just one time encounters, but mutually reinforcing and benefiting relationships. While you may learn something today, you may have something to teach tomorrow. You create Lateral Wisdom.

May 17, 2011

For every group, organizational team, department, ministry, and Networked Learning Collaborative in the future, there is or there will be a tipping point in which people stop hoarding information and ideas and begin sharing. When this threshold is reached, the Collaboration Cascade begins.

I choose the term Collaboration Cascade to describe the point at which teams or groups reach a tipping point or threshold when the collaboration of some can cause a cascade of collaboration and cooperation from those who have not been participating or who have been hoarding their information, knowledge, and insight. This is the point of the Collaboration Cascade, a “cascade” of collaboration as more members begin to move from non-participation to participation, from hoarding to sharing, from non-cooperation to cooperation.

The tipping point or threshold at which teams reach the collaboration cascade will be different and unique for each group, governed by the unique group dynamics of that particular team.

The self-interest of the individual competes against the group dynamics that require members to collaborate, cooperate, share, and participate. For many members their collaboration is contingent on the collaboration of others. In other words, some members will in essence say, “You go first.” Their collaboration will require others to first demonstrate their willingness to collaborate. The question is what conditions must exist to create the tipping point or for members to reach their threshold to create a Collaboration Cascade?

I put the question, “What conditions must exist before you will step-out and share your ideas and collaborate with others? What makes you share?” to my Twitter PLN and my Quora Networks.

Here are some of the responses.

@maverickwoman I was born to share- I don't think about it- its like an internal software driving my behaviour- a natural connector

@JBrandon building off the ideas of others, and not being afraid of people telling me my ideas are too "out of the box."

May 05, 2011

I have advocated that technology and other key drivers have created an environment in which individual teams can be networked with, not only other teams, but useful individuals such as specialists, consultants, experts, researchers, etc. I call this model the Networked Collaborative.

The essence of the Networked Collaborative is that the “who” of potential members and collaborators is increased exponentially because of individual members networking through collaborative technology platforms, the “what.” People working together, collaborating, sharing, creating, problem solving, etc., while sharing physical space, virtual space, or both simultaneously.

The Networked Collaborative makes use of what network researchers call a “small world network.” Keith Sawyer, author of Group Genius, explains that small world networks consist of,“…many densely connected small groups with less strong connections.”

Brian Uzzi of Northwestern University and Jarrett Spiro of Stanford University studied the 20the century Broadway musical industry, an industry in which many teams of people created projects, and then moved on to new projects, but maintained varying levels of interconnectedness. The Broadway musical industry was a network. From their research the derive a single number, which they called “Q.” Q is a measure of how densely interconnected the entire community is.

As Keith Sawyer points out, “When Q is low, there aren’t many links among teams, and those links aren’t very strong. When Q is high, the teams are connected by more and more people who know people on the other teams. If Q is very high, then teams are connected by many members and everyone has worked with everyone else multiple times.”

The Networked Collaborative attempts to harness they power of Q by creating connections with many more people than the team members sitting at the table. As these connections increase and are frequently re-visited, the level of Qincreases.

Connections are the key. More connections increase the surface area of a typical team and exposes them to many more people who can contribute in meaningful ways to the work of the team.

“Connections expose a team to new sources of creative material. But if the network is totally connected, there is less diversity of ideas and the web risks falling into a rut of conventional styles. Recall the research showing that brainstorming groups often fall into groupthink and become less innovative than solitary workers. The most creative web is the one in which good connections exist among the teams, but the teams still enjoy independence and autonomy.”

The Networked Collaborative leverages the INDIVIDUAL networks of each member. No two networks look the same; therefore the Networked Collaborative is leveraging multiple unique networks. This uniqueness helps to offset the problem of groupthink.

Want to raise the IQ of your church teams collaboration, then create your own Networked Collaborative and harness the power of Q.

March 22, 2011

In the Thin Walled church- Learning takes place in multiple locations, venues, and times- Real Space and Digital Space- on-demand and “just-in-time.”

A Thin Walled church designs with Mobile, Global, and Local in mind at all times.

A Thin Walled church increases choice of- time, location, delivery, and content.

Thinning the walls is developing an Internet campus and going to the Cloud. Thin Walled churches enable services MON-SUN, anytime, and delivered anywhere.

Thin Walled churches make it easy to share knowledge, wisdom, and insight among teams inside AND among other churches, fields, and professions outside.

A Thin Walled church gets new ideas from internal and external sources. These ideas are free to be explored and lead to organic innovation due to a loose organizational structure—thin walls between teams, departments, staff, and leaders.

Thin Walled churches value social learning values and reciprocity. Thin Walled churches share through the network. The network remembers if you helped someone learn. The thin walls in networks know...If you didn't they remember that too.

February 08, 2011

During times of collaboration, do people consider your ideas good enough to "subscribe" to or do they just scan, skip, or even worse, consider them "spam?"

One of my favorite blogs is Lateral Action. Contributing writer Rajesh Setty posted about whether bloggers, Twitters, etc., could know if their ideas were succeeding in influencing their audiences in a positive way. His idea is that the audience would “tell them” by the manner in which they responded to the online content.

This got me thinking about how we know if the ideas we share in team meetings, staff meetings, etc., are influencing the "audience" of our co-workers or team members. Are they responding to what I am saying. Are they listening or ignoring me? Are they subscribing to my ideas and sharing them? Or do they simply see my ideas as "spam" in the conversation?

In many ways...how we react to the ideas we hear during times of collaboration is similar to how we respond to the content we encounter daily on the web.

Great ideas engage us. We hear great ideas and then want to leverage them. Some ideas transform the way we think about a topic or problem. And some ideas just waste our time.

What I found interesting, is this closely mirrors how we tend to collaborate with each other.

Rajesh suggests there is 9 ways people respond to content. Spam, Skip, Scan, Stop, Save, Shift, Send, Spread, and Subscribe. Remixing these, I found there are 9 ways we respond to ideas when we collaborate in our teams.

1. Spam:“If your content does not provide a reasonable ROII (return-on-investment for an interaction) for the reader or is self-serving or simply useless, the reader will mark it as spam. Posting something that may be assessed, as “spam” is the fastest way to losing credibility.”

If your ideas, thoughts and comments do not provide any benefit to your team, or worse, seem self-serving as opposed to meeting the needs of your team or organization, you are going to lose credibility as a member. Make a contribution through collaboration that benefits the team and the organization.

2. Skip: “The reader makes an assessment that he or she won’t lose much by reading it. In this case, the reader has not written you off yet but if you consistently create content that is worth “skipping,” the reader might write you off.”

The worst thing that can happen to you as team member is to have others stop listening and stop giving any consideration to your ideas, thoughts, and comments. If you consistently fail to add to the discussion in a positive way, or focus on yourself instead of the issue at hand, the organizational needs, etc., people are going to consider your ideas, thoughts and comments worth skipping.

“Skipping” is a failure in collaboration.

3. Scan:“The reader thinks there are only a few parts that are of relevance and wants to get right to the core of the content and skip the rest.”

Cut to the chase. The most valuable resource for your staff is their time. Don’t waste people’s time. Effectively collaborate by getting to the point, being succinct, staying on topic, driving to the core of the issue, and providing possible solutions or ideas to the issue at hand. If you want team members to stop, focus, consider your ideas, and collaborate on them--get to the core quickly.

4. Stop: “The reader is touched by the article and stops to think about the article, it’s relevance and what it means to him or her personally and professionally.”

During team meetings our sharing goal should be to get members to "hear" things that make them stop, take notice, and want to dig deeper. Great ideas, meaningful comments, powerful solutions make teams stop, think, and collaborate to create impact for the organization.5. Save:“The content is so good that the reader might want to re-visit this multiple times.”

Smart teams will save great ideas and revisit them. Smart teams will save the best ideas and look for ways to use and apply them in new situations. Knowledge Management should focus on content that is so good your organization will want to revisit it.

6. Shift:“The article is transformational. The reader is so deeply affected (in a positive way) by the article that it shifts some of their values and beliefs. In other words, this piece of writing will transform the reader and make him or her grow.”

An important aspect of any organization or team is the word “learning.” Learning teams and organizations are always learning from each other, from current research, from experience, etc. Learning teams and organization adjust or shift what they do, how they do it, or what they know when they apply what they have learned.

7. Send:“The content is not only useful to the reader but also to one or more people in the reader’s network. The reader simply emails the article or a link to it to people that he or she cares.”

When learning organizations or teams learn something of value, they share it with others to make a bigger impact for the organization. Sharing knowledge, ideas, and solutions by “sending” them on to others in their networks is what learning organizations or teams do. It is at the heart of collaboration.

8. Spread:“The reader finds the article fascinating enough to spread it to anyone and everyone via a blog, twitter or the social networks that he or she belongs.”

Spreading ideas through our networks is a characteristic of a learning organization. Technology should be viewed as a natural part of how it works. You should take the time to spread ideas through your organization and networks. Learning organizations and teams spread smart ideas.

9. Subscribe:“This is the ultimate expression of engagement and a vote of confidence that you will continue to provide great content. When the reader wants to continue listening to your thoughts, he or she will subscribe.”

Subscribing is the end result of trust and credibility. All teams are more effective when there is trust. When you prove you are trust worthy, that you have knowledge and ability, and collaborate with your team, you become credible. Team members “subscribe” to credible team members.

Rajesh Setty gives a few more things to consider that are equally valuable for team collaboration.

1. Understand Your Audience“…your audience should be the center of the focus and not you. The more you know about your audience, the better you can connect with them.”

The better we can connect with each other in our teams, the better collaboration we will have, and the better results we will produce for students.

2. Check Your Objective

What is the purpose or goal of your team meeting? If you don’t know what you are walking in the door to discuss then you probably aren’t prepared. If you are not prepared you are not going to be able to add your best during collaboration. Know your objective.

3. Unleash Your Creativity

“You know the audience and you know the purpose... Now the next step is to unleash your creativity and create something that will generate the kind of response that you are looking for.”

Pay attention to the response and feedback you are getting from other members. Notice if they are spamming you, skipping you, scanning you, stopping for you, saving you, being shifted by you, sending you, spreading you, or subscribing to you. Reflect and then adjust your collaboration style to get the results you want.

It really comes down to having a high ROII,"Return on Investment for an Interaction."

August 16, 2010

No organization should be better at learning than the organizations that teach people how to learn. Therefore, it would follow that education should be the best organization in terms of learning ability of capability.

On this post (Innovation = Learning) on his blog, Keith Sawyer discusses an article in the Fall 2007 issue of Sloan Management Review, by Joaquín Alegre and Ricardo Chiva. They studied organizations high in organizational learning capability (OLC) and identified five core features of high OLC companies:

Keith shares some of his thoughts from his research on each of the five core features.

(1) Experimentation: “Experimentation as defined by these authors, produces a flow of new ideas that challenge the established order.”

Does education tend to toward challenging the established order or supporting the established order?

(2) Risk taking:“Risk taking is just what it sounds like: the tolerance for ambiguity and errors. And as I’ve found, innovative organizations foster idea generation and tolerate failure.”

Does education posses a tolerance for ambiguity and errors. Does education foster idea generation and in what ways does it to do this. How about tolerating failure? Where does education fall on the spectrum or encouraging or discouraging ideas with the potential to fail?

(3) Interaction with the external environment: “Interaction with the external environment is what I call “collaborating with customers” and is associated with innovative networks that I call collaborative webs in my book Group Genius. Deborah Ancona, in her 2007 book X-Teams, has likewise discovered that successful teams have an outward focus, and strong social network ties with people outside of their team.”

Has education developed an outward focus? In what ways has education collaborated with its “customer base?” How has education fostered strong social networks with people outside of their classrooms, schools, and districts?

(4) Dialogue and (5) participative decision making: “Dialogue and participative decision making are what I call improvisation–a style of communication and an organizational culture that is egalitarian, open to flows across status levels. Improvisational organizations excel at a type of dialogue that opens up possibilities, a style of conversation in which new and unexpected ideas emerge.”

In what ways has education embraced dialogue and participative decision making? How could education benefit from a greater use of dialogue and participative decision making? Does education encourage idea sharing across job functions and management levels?

Keith concludes by saying, “I firmly believe that organizations high in learning ability are more likely to be innovative organizations, and I’m delighted to read of this fascinating study confirming the link.”

I too hope that education has developed a high learning ability because we need all the innovation we can get. I think the jury is still out whether we who are high in teaching ability are also high in learning ability. I would like to to think we are.

It also makes me wonder if we are giving students enough opportunities to experiment, take risks, interact with the external (outside of school) environment, dialogue, and participate in decision making. Certainly these skills are going to be necessary in the organizations that our students will one enter into, but shouldn't they be necessary right now in our classrooms?

July 20, 2010

Back in 2002 in his book Smart Mobs: The Next Social RevolutionHoward Rheingold predicted that, “The ‘killer apps’ of tomorrow’s mobile infocom industry won’t be hardware devices or software program but social practices. The most far reaching changes will come, as they often do, from the kinds of relationships, enterprises, communities, and markets that the infrastructure makes possible.”

The prediction, as we now know, was spot dead on. (Nothing new for Howard) The technology has transformed our relationships, how we are able to collaborate, how we now define communities, and what kinds of work we are able to do.

This get to the very heart of the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative (PNLC) No longer is the work of educational teams limited to face-to-face over the table collaboration. No longer is email viewed as the technology of choice for collaboration. No longer are teams limited by geography.

The true difference in the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative does not lie in the technology. First, the technology enables different types of relationships. Virtual relationships are now possible and have become commonplace outside of educational settings. Networks of all sorts (Facbebook, Ning, Twitter, etc.) webcams, etc. have changed the very definition of presence.

Second, technology has changed who is part of the team. Team members can now be virtual. Members no longer tied to geographic limitation can provide input, ideas, and collaborate in real-time for any location on the globe. The Professional Learning Community succeeded because it viewed its membership of the grade level/subject matter and the school. The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative enabled through technology expands the ring of membership to include specialist, consultants, district staff, etc as part of the team.

Third, the very enterprise of the typical grade level or subject matter team will be different as technology enables networks to allows for new levels of data analysis, planning, lesson design, etc. The reality is that what grade levels or subject matter teams will be able to do compared with what they do right will not just more or better… it will be different.

Finally, the PNLC model it not going to be limited to the technology that currently exists for two reasons.

First, the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative is what I call a “Change is Normal Organization”(CiNO). It is designed to change and adapt. The values of the PNLC of ICE3:Imagination, Innovation, Inquiry, Collaboration, Creativity, Curiosity, Exploration, Experimentation, and Entrepreneurship ensure the PNLC will change.

Second, the technology that we now use to collaborate virtually or network on is going to change. But, the hardware we use to access these platforms is going to move off of the desktop or laptop on to our phones. I describe this as the 4th Way. As Howard Rheingold so presciently foretold in 2002, “These devices will help people coordinate actions with others around the world—and, perhaps more importantly, with people nearby. Groups of people using these tools will gain new forms of social power, new ways to organize their interactions and exchanges just in time and just in place.”

He asks, “How will human behavior shift when the appliances we hold in our hands, carry in our pockets, or wear in our clothing become supercomputers that talk to each other through a wireless mega-Internet?”

Howard provides an answer. He says, “They will enable people to act together in new ways and in situations where collective action was not possible before.”

The PNLC is not just better…it’s totally different. It's the "killer app."